Frying pans are popular cooking utensils because they allow the user to prepare a multitude of food dishes and to utilize various cooking techniques on foods. Specifically, frying pans can be used to sauté, braise, sear, fry, brown and even grill foods. The same food may be subjected to multiple cooking techniques in sequence and/or the different food ingredients may be cooked differently. Many food dishes require the user to cook various ingredients in stages using the same or different techniques and to then combine all the ingredients at the end of the cooking process. This segmented cooking process creates the need for additional plates and bowls in which to store the cooked ingredients until all of them are finally combined. As a result, more dishes and plates need to be cleaned after cooking, more pans or cooking bowls are needed to keep the food warm, and space is sometimes limited. Sometimes it is also desirable to keep certain fats and oils used to prepare or cook individual ingredients separate and apart from other foods or the final food product.
Frying pans are generally round or circular in shape and are commonly constructed of steel, cast iron, aluminum, copper, or other metals. Many frying pans also feature a non-stick coating to help prevent foods from sticking to their cooking surface. Most often, a pan has a flat cooking surface (base) that rests on the stove burners surrounded by a side wall around the entire circumference that helps keep the food in the cooking area. One or more handles are usually incorporated into the pan, typically connected to the side wall providing a means to hold the pan and to move and position it.
Typically, when cooking foods in a frying pan some form of lipid is introduced into the pan such as oil, lard, butter and/or margarine. Foods that are themselves fatty or oily in nature, such as bacon, would require much less or even no lipids when being cooked. In addition to acting as a lubricant between the pan and the foods, the lipids add flavor and may help decrease the overall cooking time of the food. Although the added lipids offer many benefits, they also come with some drawbacks. The fat and cholesterol content of the food being prepared increases in proportion to the amount of lipids used when preparing the food. Sometimes, it is therefore beneficial and/or desirable to minimize the amount of lipids in the final food product.
Oftentimes when cooking foods and preparing food dishes, the foods are cooked separately and then combined in the end. One reason for this is that the ingredients and components in a single food dish may require different times to fully cook. Another reason is that the ingredients and components may need to be cooked at different temperatures or using different cooking styles. When using one frying pan and/or when in a confined cooking space, it is common to cook ingredients or components separately and to remove them from the pan to prevent overcooking and then reintroduce them at a later stage of the cooking process. Ingredients removed from the frying pan are typically placed on a separate plate, bowl, or similar holding tray until they need to be reintroduced into the pan. This requires additional plates while cooking the other ingredients which increases time to cook as well as the cleanup effort needed. With the need for the additional plates comes the need for a larger area to prepare the food and a place to rest those plates while the user performs the rest of the cooking Also, the ingredients that have been removed from the pan may undesirably cool off which may alter the desired cooking process and/or affect the flavor of the food.
It would be very beneficial to have a frying pan with a shelf for the separation and storage of ingredients within the pan during the cooking process but outside the primary cooking surface area of the pan. A storage area that the food can easily be transferred onto and off of. Such a storage area could also be used to keep the food warm and would also help collect and drain liquids.
It is an object of the present invention to provide a pan with a primary cooking surface and a secondary storage surface all within one device.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide a pan with two cooking surfaces, one for use directly on a stove as a primary cooking surface and a second, elevated, cooking surface not in direct contact with the heat source.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide a pan with a primary cooking surface and a shelf above the primary cooking surface connected to the side wall of the base which allows for easy introduction and removal of foods onto and off of each of the two surfaces when cooking.
It is yet a further object of the present invention to provide a cooking pan device with a primary base cooking surface and a sloped shelf for foods, wherein the shelf further includes raised ridges and recesses.
It is yet another object of the present invention to provide a cooking pan with a shelf containing a liquid collection recess.
It is yet another object of the invention to provide a food preparation and/or serving device having a plurality of levels.